A hydrological approach to developping catchment-scaled riverine integrity model

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26820196
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Hydraulic engineering
• Research Institution: University of Miyazaki (2016); Tohoku University (2014-2015)
• Principal Investigator: Nukazawa Kei 宮崎大学, 工学部, 助教 (20725642)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 水文モデル / 生息場適性指数 / 底生動物 / 種多様性 / 健全度 / B-IBI / 平均スコア

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We computed hydraulic and thermal variables in river using a distributed hydrological-thermal model which has been developed in the Natori River catchment, Japan. These variables were subsequently used as explanatory variables to predict habitat suitability of 41 stream invertebrate taxa. We applied the habitat suitability models to estimate stream health metrics; taxon richness, species diversity, average score per taxon, benthic-index of biotic integrity (B-IBI) throughout the study catchment. We defined taxon-specific cutoff values to determine presence/absence of the focal taxon by habitat suitability values, and used this to calculate the taxon richness. The predicted taxon richness displayed significant positive correlation (P<0.05) with the observed taxon richness of stream invertebrates, suggesting usefulness of this predictive model of species diversity.

Free Research Field

水文生態学